Aussie Disneyland Planners come on in and lets plan together :)

[aussiegirls]

I have just booked our lunch at American Girl at the Grove, it sounds so cute. Has anyone ever been there? Now I think all that is left is PS for Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood, but can only do that 30 days out

xxx

 

[kylieh]

I have just booked our lunch at American Girl at the Grove, it sounds so cute. Has anyone ever been there? Now I think all that is left is PS for Hard Rock Cafe Hollywood, but can only do that 30 days out

xxx

We didn't haven't time for lunch last year, bit it's on the list for next year. DD. Can't wait. We did buy a doll last year, one in the "Just Like Me" range. Accessories for the dolls are relatively exe, well the dolls are too, but DD's doll is very-muched loved. Ooh, and the store is HUGE!!!

 

[marvel]

I am finding it hard to work out when to fit in a breakfast as I don't want to waste riding time eating breakfast. I see everyone is going to carnation cafe, anything particularly appealing for that one? What about BLue Bayou, not many seem to be booking that. I notice they have a split meal thing there, for $12 you order one main and they split it but give you both the sides dishes.

We love both WDW and DL. THey are totally different IMHO. But we really loved Universal Orlando, we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel there, and it was one of the best hotels we stayed in. We spent 5 days, but could have done more. It has such a great feeling about it, fabulous pool and you just walk to Universal and Islands of adventure. That being said love the Hollywood Universal as well, its just different.

 

[melbarkwith]

I am finding it hard to work out when to fit in a breakfast as I don't want to waste riding time eating breakfast. I see everyone is going to carnation cafe, anything particularly appealing for that one? What about BLue Bayou, not many seem to be booking that. I notice they have a split meal thing there, for $12 you order one main and they split it but give you both the sides dishes.

Looking at last year's park hours, both DL and DCA won't open until 10am on the weekdays we are there which makes it easy to do breakfast. We are also planning to have breakfast at Minnie's on the weekend (last year opening at 8am). We aim to book breakfast at around 9.30am, be at DL when it opens and spend the first hour and a half on rides.

As for Carnation Cafe - my 8YO DD went through the menus on allears.net and decided she wanted to go there. There seems to be food there that all 5 of us will eat which helps

 

[Czardas]

I am finding it hard to work out when to fit in a breakfast as I don't want to waste riding time eating breakfast.

I am the same. Due to the parks opening at 10am I would of already eaten breakfast before we hit the parks and the early entry morning I will be too busy in Fantasyland to think about losing time sitting down having breakfast.

We will grab a snack at our hotel and then probably have a few bits and pieces (churros, corndogs etc) walking around before lunch. Urgh I feel full already just thinking about all the food I have on my "must eat" list.

We are also only there for three days so we dont have the luxury of leisurely meals etc. it's all about getting on the rides for me

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I am the same. Due to the parks opening at 10am I would of already eaten breakfast before we hit the parks and the early entry morning I will be too busy in Fantasyland to think about losing time sitting down having breakfast.

We will grab a snack at our hotel and then probably have a few bits and pieces (churros, corndogs etc) walking around before lunch. Urgh I feel full already just thinking about all the food I have on my "must eat" list.

We are also only there for three days so we dont have the luxury of leisurely meals etc. it's all about getting on the rides for me

Hmmmmm, I am getting hungry just thinking about it.

Czardas, can you tell me a bit about your other trip in 8 months? Is it a cruise, have you been to these countries before etc?

 

[arje]

I think if this thread continues to grow and grow, we may get our own one, like the UK one for WDW. WDW is a marathon, we went for 12 days last year to fit in days of rest and the waterparks. The hardest part was working out which park to go on what day, and then to match up the dining with that day. I think we changed our PS 5 or 6 times? Can you now do it online??

(sorry just catching up, but ...) I agree with this, an Australian section like the UK one would be ideal for us "downunder disers". As much as the West side is the main focus for Australians, Disney nerds like us here also go to the East coast, as well as other destinations too like Tokyo and HK as well. And it would be handy to have an area we can discuss various different topics and assistance, targetted specifically at our own needs and common requirements. For example, we're booking a total of 21 days at the world as we want to make sure we get as much in as we can. We don't do DL in less than 10 days each trip, so we figured that twice as long for 4 extra parks would be minimum.

Wonder if the mods will here these pleas, especially after Pete comes back from his ABD Australian trip?

 

[dollarmite]

As much as the West side is the main focus for Australians, Disney nerds like us here also go to the East coast, as well as other destinations too like Tokyo and HK as well. And it would be handy to have an area we can discuss various different topics and assistance, targetted specifically at our own needs and common requirements.

I had a terrible time trying to find information on WDW. Aside from a brief blurb in some of the travel brochures there isn't a lot to go on and most TA don't seem very knowledgeable. The dining plan wasn't even mentioned in the brochures I looked at.

I asked my local TA for prices for the WDW part of the trip and the ones she gave me were taken straight out of the brochure plus some unbelievably crazy price for the dining plan. I doubt she would have picked up on the free dining either, had we booked with her.

Thank heavens I found the DISBoards and Dreams Unlimited!! My DU TA has saved us a fortune on the dining plan, plus made all the ADRs for us. Without the DISBoards I wouldn't even have known a dining plan existed and that we needed ADRs - I dread to think what our trip would have been like had we just rocked up and then been turned away from all the character and popular meals.

Having our own forum would be great as there are things specific to our location that just aren't relevant to non-Aussies/NZers, such as exchange rates, length of stay, amount of travel involved, extra luggage needed due to extra length of stay (which can be very problematic when catching US domestic flights), etc.

 

[becpee]

For those of you that have booked The Hojo, how did you do it? I tried doing it online and it kept telling me I was doing something wrong so I have emailed them and i'll ring them later.

It was saying the characters I was using weren't acceptable but I hadn't out any in......

 

[rossip]

Oh Boy it's getting close now for everyone

Whats the story with duty free these days ? If I want to buy an Ipod at Big W because its cheaper at present than DF , how do I go about claiming the Tax back ? And I gather you can't use it till your out of the country still ?

Ta

 

[melbarkwith]

For those of you that have booked The Hojo, how did you do it? I tried doing it online and it kept telling me I was doing something wrong so I have emailed them and i'll ring them later.

It was saying the characters I was using weren't acceptable but I hadn't out any in......

I called them. The kids suites weren't showing availability online, but they were available.

 

[Jade+3]

For those of you that have booked The Hojo, how did you do it? I tried doing it online and it kept telling me I was doing something wrong so I have emailed them and i'll ring them later.

It was saying the characters I was using weren't acceptable but I hadn't out any in......

We have booked the entertainment rate. To do that I needed to ring them and ask for in-house reservations.

 

[melbarkwith]

Oh Boy it's getting close now for everyone

Whats the story with duty free these days ? If I want to buy an Ipod at Big W because its cheaper at present than DF , how do I go about claiming the Tax back ? And I gather you can't use it till your out of the country still ?

Ta

I don't know about claiming the tax back. I would be very interested to hear. Would it be cheaper still to just get the ipod in the US? My older kids have ipod shuffles, and they only have the usb cord for charging them.

But your post has just reminded me (and anyone else who had a direct V flight cancel), that we will have to buy duty free in Sydney and then drag it onto our domestic Virgin Blue flight.

 

[Jade+3]

I don't know about claiming the tax back. I would be very interested to hear. Would it be cheaper still to just get the ipod in the US? My older kids have ipod shuffles, and they only have the usb cord for charging them.

But your post has just reminded me (and anyone else who had a direct V flight cancel), that we will have to buy duty free in Sydney and then drag it onto our domestic Virgin Blue flight.

Glad you mentioned that about the duty free. This re-routed flight is beginning to be a drama. DH wants me to try and get a refund and rebook direct flights with Qantas.

 

[melbarkwith]

Glad you mentioned that about the duty free. This re-routed flight is beginning to be a drama. DH wants me to try and get a refund and rebook direct flights with Qantas.

Good luck with getting a refund. When I first rang them and mentioned how peeved I was that we lost the entire day in Anaheim (going from 6.30am arrival to 4.50pm), their response was 'do you have travel insurance'. Apparently I could have claimed a refund through that. I'm not too stressed about 'having' to go a day earlier but it's a bit of a hassle.

To be quite honest, the thought of a direct MEL-LAX flight during our daytime had me worried. I have done it once before and it was difficult. I don't know how the kids would have handled being cooped up that length of time while they were awake. At least now we have a short domestic flight, and then the longer one when they *should* be tired and asleep.

 

[becpee]

To be quite honest, the thought of a direct MEL-LAX flight during our daytime had me worried. I have done it once before and it was difficult. I don't know how the kids would have handled being cooped up that length of time while they were awake. At least now we have a short domestic flight, and then the longer one when they *should* be tired and asleep.

This is what we were thinking as well, hopefully our royal highness will have a sleep (a good one) and the flight *should* be easier than what we were originally doing.....

 

[Andona]

Oh Boy it's getting close now for everyone

Whats the story with duty free these days ? If I want to buy an Ipod at Big W because its cheaper at present than DF , how do I go about claiming the Tax back ? And I gather you can't use it till your out of the country still ?

Ta

Not really "Duty Free" anymore on these items - these days you can just claim back the GST.

You can claim back the GST on any items bought within a single transaction totalling over $300 - but you have to have all the items with you in your carry on luggage or on your person. You can only claim on items bought within 30 days of your departure. You can use them within that 30 days - which is great when you've bought a new camera and want to get the feel of it before you travel

Take the items, the purchase receipt, your passport and boarding pass with you to the TRS ( Tourist Refund Scheme) office which is located just past the immigration counters when you go to your gates at the airport. You must make the claim at least 30 minutes before your flight is due to depart.

The TRS official will have to sight any items that you're claiming tax back on so don't make the mistake of putting them in your checked luggage.

People claim all sorts of things - there was a woman in front of me that had been on a shopping spree at Myer and was claiming, amongst other things, the jeans she was wearing!

Just remember the purchase has to be over $300 in one transaction .

Theres a useful link here http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4366

Andona

 

[Jade+3]

Oh Boy it's getting close now for everyone

Whats the story with duty free these days ? If I want to buy an Ipod at Big W because its cheaper at present than DF , how do I go about claiming the Tax back ? And I gather you can't use it till your out of the country still ?

Ta

Here is a link with how to claim back the taxes

http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4646

On our last trip I was going to claim the tax back on our new camera. We got to the airport 3.5 hours before our flight. It took over 2 hours to check-in as Qantas only had 1 staff member on the economy check-in counter, then by the time we had gone through security etc, there was no time to get the refund.

I did tell DH that I didn't think they would give us a refund, which is why I am not going to bother. Our direct flight from Brisbane is a day flight. We had that last time too, and had both kids awake for the first 8 hours of the flight.

 

[gogo65]

Don't forget with duty free that u can no longer buy alcohol on your trip out of Australia and in to the US because of the liquid restrictions and you can't even buy it when you arrive in LA.
No duty free alcohol until you return home

And yes you can claim anything including clothes, we didn't realise until it was to late, that we could have claimed all our ski gear including snowboards, skis etc

 

[gogo65]

As for us getting our own forum, maybe we could start asking specific questions in a new thread but put Aussie planners in the title eg: Aussie disneyland planners-duty free question OR something like that then the mods may be able to see how many different questions we have that are related to visitors coming from OZ.